Apex domains cannot have CNAME records.
Question and response
Question
dig beardsandbanter.com. NS
Answer
beardsandbanter.com. 5 NS ns2.beardsandbanter.com.
beardsandbanter.com. 5 NS ns1.beardsandbanter.com.
Authority
The response has no authority records.
Additional
ns1.beardsandbanter.com. 5 A 149.56.25.51
ns2.beardsandbanter.com. 5 A 51.161.109.31
. 0 OPT ; payload 1232, xrcode 0, version 0, flags 0